While residents of Lismore are waiting on tenterhooks for tomorrow’s announcement about whether the statewide lockdown will lift, local businesses are closing - and families are doing it tough.

Today, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the government was polishing off its roadmap to open NSW out of current lockdown restrictions - and any decisions will be based on the guidelines in the Doherty Report, the National Plan and current Covid data.

As this yellow brick roadmap toward conditional freedom is built around the target of an 80% vaccination rate, the outcome for our region this week remains unclear.

Lift the local lockdown

After five weeks in lockdown, State MP Janelle Saffin and Lismore Mayor Vanessa are both appealing to the NSW Government for it to end, as scheduled on Friday.

State MP Janelle Saffin said she has sent a “lift the local lockdown” letter to the Government after being contacted by “thousands” of locals who don’t understand why the lockdown continues in our region when we have no cases.

“The reasons why haven’t been explained well enough to us,” she said.

Byron Bay sewage

With Byron Bay sewage testing positive again recently for Covid fragments, and with vaccination rates in the Byron LGA amongst the lowest in the State, will this mean Lismore will also be kept longer in lockdown?

“We are all waiting with anticipation, but also apprehension, because the decision is based on what’s happening in Sydney and the Government’s data,” Ms Saffin said.

“If the lockdown is not lifted, we want the government to clearly explain the reason why not.”

Businesses to close

“A couple of business people have said to me the restrictions have been too much, for too long and they will shut their businesses down,” Ms Saffin said.

“The Government has an obligation to carry people to keep them in a stable state.

Optimism diminished

“Last year with Jobkeeper and the small business grants, people had a degree of optimism.

“But this year, it’s diminished and businesses that have been struggling don’t have any surplus in their kitty thins time around. They are getting through with Jobsaver or small business grants, but it’s a different feeling that is palpable in the community.”

Too long

Lismore Mayor Vanessa Ekins said like Ms Saffin, she too supported the initial “short sharp lockdown” that was introduced five weeks ago when we knew there were some Covid cases from

Sydney that had been active in our community. Read more: Local community concerned over Nimbin close contacts 

“But five weeks is too long when there have been no cases here,” she said.

“Now we need businesses to open and kids should go back to school and interact with their peers and teachers.

Business downturn

“In Lismore, there’s been a 50 to 80% business downturn and that’s just the ones still open.

“There’s no rationale to keep us locked down – and keeping us in extended lockdown will reduce people’s willingness to do it in future.

Losing willingness

“You need everyone’s cooperation to make lockdown work and the Doherty modelling shows even if we get 80% of the population vaccinated, we will still need lockdowns when outbreaks occur.

“The recent Byron Covid fragments are just an indicator - maybe it was just someone passing through doing service delivery. There were some found a few weeks before and we had no community cases reported.

“Covid is here to stay, so we need to make sure people have trust – and if they should get tested if they have any symptoms, wear masks and be ready for more lockdowns.”

Covid statistics

Yesterday there were 1,480 locally acquired cases in NSW

1136 are in hospital, 194 in ICU and 78 are on ventilation. Of them, 158 were not vaccinated.